Thinking Activity : Renaissance Literature

Here is my answer compare and contrast characteristic of renaissance age with other ages. Task Given by Dr.Dilip Barad sir Head of English department m.k.b.university.

In the earlier times,literature was dominated by the spirit of religion and blind faith.However in the Renaissance age,institutions were questiond and took the cognitive level of human mind to new heights.The Renaissance was a cultural movement that initially began in Florence,Italy but later spread throughout Europe.It started around 1350 and ended around 1600.The word Renaissance means 'Rebirth' or'Revival'. During the Renaissance,people experienced changes in art,learning and many other things.

Comparison between Elizabethan age and victorian age.
  
                     

( Elizabethan era  1550 to 1620) 

Elizabethan age is known as Golden period in history of England and english literature.This period witnessed a greater advancement in science ,arts,life of people.According to W.J.long the period from 1550 to 1620 was the duration of Elizabethan age.The Period of Queen of Elizabethan reign  England is rightly called "The Golden period" in the history of England and also in the history of english literature.Queen Elizabeth seemed one of the best rulers of English nation.In literary terms this period is considered as the period of  'Renaissance'. We know that the meant Re-birth or revival. In this age,there was rebirth or revival of Greek and Italian culture,learning,literature art painting etc..It was the period of awakening for knowledge and advancement. The Elizabethan Age refers to the period of Elizabethan 1 reign and is characterized by vigorous intellectual thinking and age of Adventurous and discovery,a time in which new ideas and new experience .The period revolutionized many aspects of English life,most significantly literature.

(Victorian era 1850 to 1900)

According to W. J. Long the period from 1850 to 1900 was the duration of the victorian Age.victoria became a Queen,in 1837. We notice that both of era Elizabethan and victorian era the rural is Queen. It is a Age of Democracy,it is an age of popular education,of religious tolerance,and profound social unrest.Education developed in both of Age.Victorian age is especially remarkable because of its rapid progress in all the arts and sciences and in mechanical invention.The victorian era was specifically British and marked a sort of golden age for many British citizens.

   Drama & prose and Novel:- 

During the Elizabethan age,drama made a swift and wonderful leap into maturity.The drama reached the splendid perfection in the hand of Shakespeare and ben jonson.Drama was chief literary glory of the Elizabethan age.The age of Elizabethan literature turned instinctively to the drama and brought it rapidly to the highest stage of its development.William Shakespeare is one of the famous dramatists during the Elizabethan age.

The victorian age is essentially the age of prose and novel.The forms of the literature,namely poetry and novel ,the victorian prose was also informed by the spirit of realism.The age produced many poets,and two who deserve to rank among the gretest,nevertheless this is emphatically an age of prose.It is the age of the newspaper,the magazine,and the modern novel.The great novelists like Dickens,Thackeray,George Eliot,generally leave us with a larger charity and with a deeper faith in our humanity. Literature, both in prose and in poetry ,seems to depart from the purely artistic standard,of art for arts sake, and to be actiated by a definite moral purpose.

The victorian believed that literature had to "instruct"society.It was the purpose of the writer to teach,through stories the proper way to be a person.The victorian novel wasn't as open-ended as Elizabethan poetry or drama;ther was a clear message in every story.

Language:- 

English was spoken in both eras,but we are more likely to pick up a book that was actually published in the victorian era and understand it.Many Shakespeare books today will have modern English and the English of the Elizabethan and,Carly,Stuart eras.

Education:-    

During the Elizabethan Era,The education of women depended on which class they belonged to,the women from rich and nobel families were sometimes permitted to undergo education.Education was normally at home home due to lack of girl's school's.Girl's were rarly allowed in any place of education other than petty school's.

Victorian women also typically stayed at home.Education Acts in 1850and 1878 required compulsory education for girl's it did not help much working class girl was educated in domestic skills,while some middle class girl's got a more formal education.It was still believed that girl's do not need advanced skills since their eventual role would be to take care of a family.common women did not get any formal education and the main focus was learning domestic chores,victorian women were typically taught singing,piano playing,and sewing skills learn were in line with other domestic role.In both Elizabethan and victorian era,women were not treated equally to men.

#Brief note on Thomas Hardy#

Thomas Hardy

(Victorian writer,

1840 to 1928)

Born:  June 2,1840 Upper

Bockhampton,England

Died:   January 11,1928(aged 87)

Dorchester,England

Occupation:  Novelist,poet and short story writer.

Literary period:   Victorian era

Spous:  Emma Gifford

Florence Dugdale

Nationality: English,British.

Thomas Hardy is as the greatest English novelist of victorian time.He was the eldest son of Thomas Hardy and Jemmima Hardy.His father was a stonemason and builder;his mother passed on her love of reading and book to her son.He received good education and became an articled pupil with an architect.Later he became an assistant to a well-known architect in London.when he was the student at the college,he wrote number of poems.At that time,he became interested in two major problems of that time viz.the conflict between science and religion and social and political rights of women.By the time he was thirty,he decided to abandon the profession of an architect.He also decided to devote himself to literature.Hardy spent the greater part of his life in writing the novels and finally poetry.He also tried to write a dramatic epic'THE DYNASTS'.Hardy as a novelist overshadowed Hardy, the poet.

• Hardy was a religion novelist:  

He wrote about the part of the country which he knew well.Dorset was his home country which lies in southern England.The Wessex the name which he gives to the locale of his novel.He landscape is almost as important in Hardy's novels as the characters.

• Hardy was a pessimist:

He portrays human life with is pathos,its humour,its tenderness,its strength and even its nobility.The World which Hardy depicts is one controlled by a senseless and cruel fate.In his preface to 'Tess',he quotes from King Lear " As flies to wanton boys,are we to the Gods,they kill us for their sport." 

• The major works of Hardy:

The important works of Hardy are as follow:

1. Under the Greenwood Tree(1872).

2. A pair of Blue Eyes(1873).

3.Far from the Madding Crowd(1874).

4.The Return of The Native(1878).

5.Tess of the D' Urbervilles(1891).

6. Jude The Obscure(1895).

7.The Woodlanders.

8. The mayor of Casterbridge.

9.Desperate Remedies.

10. Wessex poems.

11.The poor Man and the lady.

Thank you.........